The Senate tax bill passed over the weekend does not include a deduction that farm cooperatives lobbied to keep in the tax reform package.
The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) says the Domestic Production Activities Deduction, also known as the Section 199 deduction, means farmers may end up paying more taxes. Chuck Conner, NCFC CEO, previously said that Section 199 allows farmer cooperatives to pass nearly $2 billion nationally directly back to farmers across rural America, and farmers can then deduct their share of the Section 199 benefit on their farms’ tax forms.
Farmer co-ops support tax reform, but not the elimination of the Section 199 deduction. More than 180 agriculture groups signed a letter last month to House and Senate leadership expressing the importance of the deduction to agriculture.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting News Service.